Russian Orthodox Extremism

Unfortunately, it’s not a joke – there’s a strong movement in Russian Orthodoxy dreaming of the “holy Orthodox tsar”. Putin is the best candidate at the moment.

Russian-Ukrainian war is showing new mass manipulation tools and the most interesting among them for researchers of religion is Russian Orthodox Extremism (ROE) ideology. Mass media attention concentrates on Islamic extremism, and pays little attention to this new type of religious extremism, which is much more dangerous due to couple reasons:

Russians have nukes
Russians fight much better than Jihaddists

When in late 2000s the Russian Orthodox Church communities began creating military and patriotic groups providing youth with combat sports and martial arts education, no foreign observer could predict where this trend could lead.

To understand what this youth has being training for years we need to read the catechism of “Eurasian Youth Union”, which says: “we are the empire-builders of newest type, and we don’t agree for anything less than the power over the world”.

In their revanchism attempts Russian powers actively try to draw religious factor into their population control strategies and to provide motivation for Russian aggressions, like the war with Ukraine. Head of Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) has declared “the plot of Greek-Catholics, protestants, and Kyiv Patriarchy against Russian Orthodoxy” to be the reason of the war in Donbas. – Considering the Ukrainian traditions of the named denominations’ many year peaceful coexistence this claim makes no sense at all, but sounds horrific for the watchers of Russian TV and is motivating enough to send thousands of volunteer militants to fight for “ressurection of all-Russian identity of Eastern Slavs”.

This Russia propaganda’s “ressurection and gathering brothers together” shall be done as usually in Russian history with AK’s and “Grads”.

Orthodox Ideology of “Russian World”

The doctrine Russia uses tore-conquer countries liberated from the USSR in 1991 and to enforce its international interests is called “Russian World” and its core is national Orthodox Christianity.

In late 2014 the Russian People’s Council adopted the “Declaration of Russian identity ” – a document which states: “every Russian shall be an Orthodox” (thus violating human rights and freedoms as the West sees it).

This logically leads to maxims like “everyone, adhering to Moscow Orthodoxy should be considered Russian”. As subdivisions of Russian Orthodox Church (ROCh) exist in many countries, there are many potential victims to “liberation into Russian World” on the grounds of logically derived maxim “Russian World is there, where Russians are!”, which gives geopolitic justification of territorial claims that has been used for several times when Moscow “protected” Russians outside the country’s borders as Orthodoxes. In theory, Kremlin can use this argument in any country with Russian-speaking Orthodox population (Balkans or Baltic states, for example) or having something to do with Orthodox history (remember Putin’s 2014 speech where he states that for Russia the annexed Crimea has “great civilizational and sacred significance”).

Russian World is built on the notion of Russian Orthodoxy’s superiority compared to other religions, it considers Russian Orthodoxy believers having special right for Ultimate Truth.

Inside Russia it has lead to an inner war against “sects” in previous years (the pejorative word “sect” can be used to define any non-Russian Orthodox denomination).

In occupied parts of Ukraine this practice looks unbelievable at first sight, like a dangerous experiment that has taken place in separatist regions of Donbas (so-called ДНР and ЛНР) which in their “constitutions” have declared Russian Orthodoxy to be their”state religion”. Other religions are prohibited, their believers — persecuted and discriminated. This social experiment creates Russian national and religious dictatorship in the conquered region –something that Europe has not seen for centuries. Following this “clause” Donbas gangs like “Great Don Regiment” led by Russian Orthodox priests or similar”Russian Orthodox Army” systematically closes Orthodox churches.

Religion-based “Russian World” does raise national pride, it promotes national and religious identification of Russians, but it doesn’t have much creative features – it’s more like a survivalist doctrine in the Weltanschaung of everyone around Russia being American agents, liberals, homosexuals, and thus Satan’s servants. Russian population is very sensitive to anti-Western and anti-homosexual discourses and supports them almost always.

A good illustration of Orthodox Church’s effective aggressive anti-American rhetoric equating americanism with hitlerism is Dec 2014 speech of V.Chaplin (ROCh’s official speaker) in which he pompously announced that Russia is going to “stop the American project in a way it had stopped Hitler’s”.

Another important feature of Russian Orthodox Extremism is its justification of Soviet communism and its crimes against humanity (and religions, including Orthodoxy) to prove historical continuity of modern Russian imperialism and Soviet communist imperialism. A good example is bishop Augustin (Anisimov) who has recently declared that Communist party was “in a secret way” built on Christian principles.

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An old anticlerical joke about inviting Orthodox priest to bless intercontinental ballistic missile R-38 “Satan”, which can carry up to 10 750 kiloton nuclear warheads, doesn’t seem funny any more, for it has become a dreadful reality in once atheist country, which used to idolize science ridiculing religion just some 25 years ago.

This fundamentalist system is currently been implemented in political life of Russia and neighboring countries. In practice the export of this blend of fascism and religion to neighboring, “brother”-countries is scary: captured churches and prayer houses in Donbas suffer transformation into Russian military storehouses; protesters – killed and tortured. Russian church speakers provide the war against Ukraine with a sacred character, — it is sanctified by priests, and the militants believe that they fight for “building holy Russia and killing all of its enemies”. They also call their competitors “enemies of faith and enemies of God”, — something very similar to what Muslim jihaddists and ISIL- like groups do.

Thus, Russian Orthodox extremism as a form of totalitarisation of all spheres of life, becomes a threat both to common sanity and to civil society.

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Russian Orthodox extremism, despite its presumably ascetic monastic roots, doesn’t avoid some terrorist erotics and sexuality

Where is it heading? Religion?

At this point a question like “what does it have to do with Christ, religion, and Christian values?” should arise. To understand this we need to reconsider our understanding of religion: in all sociologic surveys Russians pretend to be one of the most religious nations in the world. Moscow Patriarchy even demands a special attitude in the Orthodox Christian world towards itself because it considers its believers to be “exclusively spiritual”.

In reality fewer than 10 percent of Orthodox respondents say they attend church regularly, and 30 percent of them admit they don’t believe in God! (Paradoxical religious identity “Orthodox atheist” is common in Russia). The great majority of Russian Orthodox believers don’t know the Orthodox Creed. This creates a schizophrenic notion of society diving into religion without religion.

Another sketch to the picture: in recent years Moscow Church has put huge efforts into preaching attempts among bikers, football fanatics, and other ultra right radicals. – To understand the paradox, imagine football hooligans or bikers in any Western European country being Christian fundamentalist and using Catholic symbolics.

Russian Orthodoxy is a unique example for everyone studying history of religion — once powerful denomination with developed theology and mystics degrades into militant ethnic and political ideology. Worse than that — in the explosive youth groups where even aggressive Christianity is not radical enough, Orthodoxy blends with neo-paganism, weirdly combining Orthodox crosses and Nazi swasticas.

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Summer 2014 somewhere in separatist-controlled regions of Donbas.

Certainly, the state does influence religion (this has been a tradition in Orthodoxy for millennium since the times of Byzantine Empire, which had exported the monastic Eastern Christianity to Kyiv state, from where it later spread to Russia), and in case of Russian government machine it gives religion bureaucratization and de facto loss of its religious functionality. The higher management, even if it does want Orthodoxy to be a religion, has nothing to do but give up and let the state turn it into the Ministry of Truth with voodoo-like tinsel. The modern tradition of Orthodoxy’s use as political and military ideology goes back to Soviet times of Stalin who allowed the Orthodox church to exist and function (under 100% KGB control) in exchange for support in WW2, and to earlier times of tsars and early Russian leaders who saw it as good ideological and brainwashing machine for their population and armies.

A strange thing for the Westerner is that modern Russia’s political machine has also decided to build Russian national identity on Orthodoxy – a “common” Orthodox in Russia can answer all questions in a sociologist review as a low-educated neo-pagan believing in reptiloids and demonoids in America, but still thinking of himself as of a Russian Orthodox – non-tolerant and hating.

Is “Russian World’s” Orthodoxy still a religion?

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“Orthodoxy or Death” – this is how many Russians see their spirituality

The implementations of “Russian World” transforms Russian Orthodoxy into something new – it doesn’t look Christian anymore, but rather becomes a national religion of Russians (with strong elements traditionally described as “pagan” and, considering early Christianity history, theoretically hostile to Church) declaring every Russian a Russian Orthodox Christian and every “true” Orthodox Christian necessary a Russian. Introduction of neo-pagan and fascist elements into Russian World and its de-facto acceptance by the Church – despite “theologic differences” should become a warning call for all Christians – there’s something awfully wrong here – for both religions understand each other perfectly – they want Russian world to spread to foreign territories and to bring Russians victory in every possible way – economic, diplomatic, military. A symbol and hero of this weird (remember, Christianity rose from the conflict with pagans, and spent many centuries fighting them) symbiosis is a former Orthodox priest, famous Russian actor I.Okhlobystin who had announced that he wanted to join “People’s army of Donbass”.

Another view has been expressed by Russian researcher Oxana Kuropatkina, who in mid-2014 has viewed the “Orthodox” worldview as “unorganised religion”: separatist militants don’t need official support of the Church, they just need to here once that are the “warriors of Christ” and whatever they do remains justified by Higher Authority.

If I was an Orthodox theologian of XIXth century, I’d call it “demonization of Russian Orthodox Church”.

A more radical answer to this question has been given by Russian political writer Alfred Koch: “Modern Orthodoxy in Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchy version, preserving some external forms and rituals of Christianity has evolved into nationalist cult of Russian State, with sin redemption via love for it… In this cult God is the State… Russian Orthodoxy isn’t Christianity any more”.

Thus, Russian Orthodox Extremism is a new phenomenon with old roots. Although it speaks about religion it has very little to do with the latter, being an attempt to build imperialistic identity on ethnic superiority concept with remnants of “spiritual culture” and hatred. This blend is explosive threat for all the Eastern Europe.

Russian World becomes a geopolitical worldview, an ideology that justifies pretensions of Russia for any territories with some Russian-speaking population, or having something to do with Russia’s history, and brings throngs of fundamentalist fanatics to fight for this delirium.

Ukrainian Donbas as a training ground for “Orthodox Al-Queda” experiment

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You know you shouldn’t trust the guy by just looking into fanatic crook’s eyes. This is Anton Rayevskyi (Антон Раевский) from St.-Petersburg, now a murderer fighting at Donbas. His body speaks even clearer language: notice the imperial eagle, the Nazi swastica, the Hitler on the shoulder, and the 8-point Orthodox cross on his right arm

The fanatics and their ideology in its most schizoid and radical form (“destroy all heretics”) are kept under control and even outlawed even in Russia, but the Russia-occupied regions of Ukraine, according to Ukrainian researcher M.Vasin, have been chosen as an experimentation ground for practical implementation, testing, and development of this construct.

How far the experiment might go giving favorable conditions? A good answer was provided by a Donbas separatist commander with a skull and cross-bones battalion insignia mr.Natyushin in the interview to BBC reporter: “We must restore the historic injustice which befell the Russian people in the 20th Century. We need to take land which is ours by right and bring it back into the fold of Holy Russia… We had the idea of a Christian Orthodox revolution … our ambition was to create an Orthodox al-Qaeda.”

It looks like the Russian Orthodox Church, already merged to high extent with state’s bureaucratic apparatus still has not satisfied its hunger for pleasures of being imperial officers like in the old Russian Empire of Romanovs. That’s why it seems to be excited receiving “upgraded features” like of inquisition or secret police, as if its leaders (all, or almost all of them being KGB agents during Soviet regime) dreamt of their organization becoming “a part of state’s repressive machine” as Russian political analytic Stanislav Belkovskiy warned years ago.

Today the process has gone even further: a part of Russia’s powerful wing of fundamentalists want to see their empire (and the provinces it is to conquer and re-conquer) becoming a kind of “Orthodox caliphate” with a God-appointed tsar giving them mandate for KGB-style forced evangelization and destruction of heretics.

If not stopped in Ukraine, Russian Orthodox extremism and terrorism will rise and spread, and thirsty for blood it will for sure look for new victims.